LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Thursday granted post-arrest bail to Mushtaq Cheeni, an alleged front man of Leader of the Opposition in Punjab Assembly Hamza Shahbaz and his brother Salman Shahbaz, in a money laundering case instituted by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

Representing the bail petition of Mr Cheeni before a two-judge bench, Advocate Asad Manzoor Butt argued that his client had turned approver in the case against Hamza and Salman and recorded his confessional statement before the judicial magistrate concerned. Later, the trial court sent the petitioner to jail on judicial remand.

The counsel said the NAB no more required the petitioner in the case and keeping him behind the bars would serve no purpose. Therefore, he asked the court to release the petitioner on bail.

A NAB prosecutor told the bench that the prosecution would have no objection if the petitioner was released on bail.

The bench comprising Justice Ali Baqar Najafi and Justice Sardar Ahmad Naeem allowed the petition and granted bail to Cheeni subject to two surety bonds of Rs500,000 each.

Mr Cheeni, in his confessional statement, had said that he had laundered over Rs600 million for Mr Hamza and his brother. The approver said he had been working for the two brothers since they started looking after their family business of sugar in 2005.

He said he was a wholesale dealer for Ramzan Sugar Mills and that Hamza and Salman used to receive foreign remittances through bank accounts of his company — Mushtaq & Co.

The NAB alleged that Mr Hamza maintained various accounts in different banks in which credit turnover of Rs500 million was observed from 2006 to 2017.

It further alleged that Hamza received fictitious foreign remittances of Rs181 million in one of his bank accounts, Rs2.11 billion in the accounts of his brother Salman, mother Nusrat, benamidars and employees of their companies.

Mr Hamza is on physical remand with the NAB in two cases — Ramzan Sugar Mills and assets beyond means/money laundering, while Salman is out of country.

In the mill’s case, the bureau alleged that then chief minister Shahbaz Sharif approved construction of a drain in Chiniot at a cost of Rs360m only to benefit Ramzan Sugar Mills owned by his sons Hamza and Salman. It said public funds were misused for the benefit of the family business of the accused.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2019